In many common day settings, maps are viewed according their natural viewing orientations rather than their geographic orientations. For instance, maps of many regions are commonly aligned and viewed at orientations that are not aligned with the geographic north or south directions. Notwithstanding the natural viewing orientations of maps of different regions, devices often display such maps initially according to their geographic orientations, and require users to manually rotate the maps through a range of angles in order to place the maps in their natural viewing orientations.
FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a map 100 that is displayed by a device 105 according to a geographic orientation (i.e., axis) that differs from the commonly viewed orientation (i.e., axis) of the map. Specifically, this figure illustrates a map 120 of Manhattan that is commonly depicted in many common days settings (e.g., in papers maps, on other documents, etc) according to an orientation that is about 20° rotated from the true geographic axis of the actual geographic map 100 of Manhattan. The map 120 is rotated because its natural viewing position is at the 20° rotated view due to the shape of Manhattan and the layout of the majority of the perpendicular streets of Manhattan.
FIG. 1 illustrates that even though the common viewing orientation of the map of Manhattan is the 20°-rotated view, a device 105 initially displays the map of this city in terms of the true geographic orientation of this city. In other words, the device 105 initially shows the true-geographic map 100 instead of the map 120. The user then has to rotate the displayed map through a range of angles from 0°-20°, until the map is oriented according to its common viewing position. Such manual adjustments are inefficient and should be eliminated if possible.